“No fucking way.” Why did nobody respect me round here? After twelve years you’d hope I’d earned the right not to have to live with this shabby treatment. I ran after Miguel. “Give me that back.”
A dozen kitchen minions in white chef outfits laughed as Miguel held the notepad above my head, just out of reach. I jumped with outstretched arms but my tormentor simply raised it that bit more, always that short distance from my hands and it was so fucking humiliating. It was like being back at school and I felt my skin flushing red.
“Hey take it easy Homes, I’ve got me a high-maintenance chick back home. I need this more than you do.”
Between attempts at reaching the order pad, through the crack under Miguel’s sweaty armpit, I saw Pedro finally enter through the back door. He didn’t look too great, but fuck that – I would tell on Miguel anyway. I didn’t care what my so-called colleagues would think for being a snitch. As far I was concerned, my reputation around this place couldn’t sink any lower regardless.
“Hey Pedro – Can you tell Miguel to give me back my order pad and quit stealing my tips.” I jumped up again for effect, reaching high with outstretched arms and predictably, Miguel retracted his hand. “Hey Pedro – You watching this shit?”
Sous Chef Pedro stumbled over from behind. Had he been hurling out there? His skin was gray, his eyes were sunken within their sockets and his jaw hung off loose to one side. Even the stupid chef hat lay lopsided. Maybe now was not the time to ask for my hundred bucks.
Miguel faced to Pedro, “Hey ese, I’m just messing here.”
Pedro lunged for Miguel, closing his mouth around his fellow Mexican’s throat.
Blood surged from the open wound as kitchen staff screamed. Red liquid turning white chef uniforms a bright crimson.
“Holy fuck. Pedro – What are you doing?” I backed off against the serving hatch, my mouth open aghast.
Miguel’s hands clasped around Pedro’s neck in a futile effort for vengeance but his legs were giving way under his own weight. A demented look that said ‘nobody home’ etched itself upon Pedro’s countenance.
Staff ran for the door but were checked by three men wobbling into the kitchen from the only escape route. They appeared as similarly deranged and forlorn as had Pedro only moments prior, especially the one in front who seemed not to notice Pedro’s meat cleaver in his neck.
Panic erupted from within the restaurant and, trying to find escape options, I thrust my head through the serving hatch for a better look. “Oh Jesus.”
Tables were being flipped over and used as barricades. Some audacious diners used them as battering rams. Plates, glasses and cutlery were thrown across the room. One man screamed as he tried to claw himself along the ground, a maniac’s jaw wrapped tightly round his ankle.
I had no idea what was happening but chaos had struck my place of employment and it had all happened so fast. I needed to find a way out, a dark hole I could crawl into and hide until whatever was going down had blown over. It would only be a matter of time before what few dark holes existed were taken by other like-minded individuals. You’d think Hollywood would be full of tough guys - We created them after all. But when the shit hit the fan, I guess you learn this place was full of those who were bullied at school, who dreamed of being tough, but folded at the first sign of trouble – People like me.
The front entrance crawled with more and more deranged freaks. There had to be somewhere to hide in this building.
I snapped from my trance as Angel clattered into me. The shoulder from his uniform had been torn away, a gaping hole lay where flesh and muscle tissue should have formed an arm.
“That’s it, I’m outta here.” A butcher’s knife protruded from a knife block, so I swiped it even though I possessed not the balls to use it.
A single flight of steps led from the chaos to the storeroom. If I locked myself in there and added some extra weight to the back of the door, I could hope to hold out indefinitely.
Co-workers put up a brave fight, battling the intruders with pans, rolling pins and spatulas. Carlos, a big Mexican who’d hopped the border only last month threw a pan of boiling water over one of the freaks who appeared not to notice the skin from his face as it melted away.
I liked Carlos. He hadn’t been working here long enough to work out that I was the company whipping boy and that stealing my tips and treating me with contempt was par for the course.
I ran by Carlos and down the steps. The storeroom door was wide open, which would have earned the perpetrator a reprimand. I guess that didn’t matter now. The room was empty. While everybody else’s first instinct was to stand and fight, mine was to fold and bolt.
An explosion from above shook the building. Shadows backed by a quick orange glow silhouetted against the stair walls.
I threw the knife down and swung the heavy door closed. Sweat pricked my brow as salt tasted on my lips. Man, was that door heavy.
“Wait…wait.” Voices screamed from above. “We’re coming down. Wait for us!”
Shit. If I waited, there’d be a chance those ghouls would get me. I figured my salary grade didn’t encompass a mauling from wild animals in human form – And that was just my co-workers. “I’m sorry, you’re too late.” I said, continuing to strain against the heavy door.
“Whoa, what the fuck you doing Homes?” It was Carlos who clattered full force into the door just as the bolt fell into the catch. I immediately applied the lock. “Let us the fuck inside! We’re all gonna die out here.”
Carlos banged repeatedly on the door, then other fists joined his. Screams and shouts sounded muffled through the thick wrought iron.
It wasn’t clear what they shouted, but I thought I heard words such as; family, wife, kids, newborn, wedding, next week, crippled son, nachos, baseball bat, skull, dead Baywater, revenge, zombies and flowers which was quite odd. Perhaps it was something in Spanish I’d misinterpreted.
I felt bad, real bad. Especially for Carlos. But I figured, given a couple more weeks, he’d have been giving me hell just like everyone else.
The screaming became even more burning and desperate and then gradually the sounds of banging, of screaming, of dying faded to nothing.
Shit – Did this mean I’d lost my hundred bucks?
I shook to a start, the nightmares so vivid in the darkness it was like a private movie screening just for me. How long was I unconscious?
Although I kind of felt bad, even after all this time, it would be hypocritical to weep for my co-workers, given that I didn’t actually like any of them, or that they all treated me like Stifler treated Shitbreak.
Not only had I missed out on my hundred bucks, but also three weeks of unpaid salary. I’d made a point of recouping all that and probably more whilst trembling in the storeroom.
But this was a real low point, even for me. Should I finally resolve myself to a slow, painful death from thirst? Or should I fight on and drink the steaming beer in the corner over there?
I was sure I remembered a movie where the protagonist was lost at sea, and survived by drinking his own pee. But living round here, I knew more than most that Hollywood was all bullshit.
I mean – It’s just water aint it? Even if it smelled like old root beer. Why oh why had I eaten so much asparagus in the storeroom? The problem was, I knew I was dehydrated anyway. While locked away, I’d overindulged on wine, beer and all manner of other spirits to drown out my sorrows, and Carlos’ screams. Although I couldn’t see it, I knew the contents of that pan would be brown. That’s a lot of chemical.
Now my question was this – If I drank the beer and then peed it out again – Would it be safe to drink for a second time? How about for a third? Could I keep myself alive indefinitely by repeatedly drinking it? Or at least until I died first from hunger, or madness.
What was I thinking? Was I going insane down here? There’s no way I’d be drinking that shit. I raised my leg to kick the pan, but something stopped me.
I was too much of a co
ward to do even that. Too pathetic to narrow down my options by taking away the one thing I had that could keep me alive just that little longer.
I loathed myself. I’d spent what seemed like the best part of three months indulging on high quality restaurant food and liquor, while the best of what remained of the human race battled the z as they fought to take over the planet. And right now I struggled to do the honorable thing.
The truth is that the honorable thing would be to die an excruciating death from dehydration. But that would be way too painful and I was too gutless to go through with anything like that.
I knew I had to drink the damn beer. Just not yet. I’d put that unpleasantness off for as long as possible.
Wow – See how happy I look mixing that martini. The image projected itself upon the mud wall of my pit. I smiled as I watched myself sitting there, surrounded by empty glasses and discarded olives.
I fucking hated olives, but I loved martini – Explain that.
I moved about the room, trash kicking about my feet as I did. The floor had long since disappeared beneath discarded food packaging, drinks cartons, vodka, whisky, rum bottles. Beer cans always made a satisfying squelch when I trod on them. I’d long since finished the pudding cans which I opened using the knife. The dry cured ham had gone, in fact all the cured meat had been ravaged, which was a great shame and I was running low on breadsticks too. Though I did have plenty of asparagus all thanks to a fresh delivery the day those freaks burst in the place. I’d taken to eating raw potatoes now, my best supplies were running low and I had no idea how much longer I’d be holed up down here.
Ok, I’d officially recouped three week’s salary unpaid and then some, so I decided to let that subject drop.
I didn’t know how long I’d been cooped up down here like a spineless rat, but judging from the length of my beard, I’d say around three months. It was now a similar length to the time I went trekking in the Yosemite National Park, took a wrong turning and wasn’t seen for a while. On that occasion, I’d survived by eating bugs, plants and fish from the streams. When the park ranger finally discovered me, I was informed I’d been missing three months and they’d long since given up the search. Apparently I was only a few hundred yards from the car park the whole time.
Three months - The fact that even I now craved human contact was saying something.
Just what was going down on the outside? I did sometimes wonder. Had the humans won? Or had those things, those zombies or whatever they were, managed to overcome us? The answer to that question depended on whether the rest of the humans were like me, or if they’d put up any kind of resistance at all. Surely some humans would’ve survived. But if they had, then nobody had come down here looking for me. That fact upset me gravely. Did nobody give a shit? I knew I was despised by most level-headed individuals I ever came across, but I was still a human being with thoughts, feelings and ambitions. Ok maybe scratch the ambitions part. But I still deserved some kind of respect. How much effort would it have taken for a search party to come down and knock on the storeroom door to see where the missing Todd Baywater had gotten to? Why did nobody care?
One thing was certain though – There was no way I’d risk leaving my salvation until it was absolutely necessary. Sure I stunk. I stunk to high heaven but it kind of grew unnoticeable the more spirits I downed.
Regularly I would speculate as to what those things were that came in the restaurant causing all that havoc. Had the word zombie been used by one of my co-workers right before their screams died? They would have had a much better view of their attackers than I had, hidden behind the wrought iron door. I ventured that perhaps this was some sick hidden camera TV show, but that idea left my head the minute I remembered Carlos throwing boiling water over that guy, and seeing Pedro ripping open Miguel’s throat. Nope – For sure, Miguel was dead. This was no hidden camera TV show.
There was no way of getting any news down here. There was no radio, TV and even my cell had no signal. I’d tried several times ringing my dad, something I hadn’t done in fourteen years. That fact alone explained the torment, mixed with sheer boredom I’d experienced. But in certain moments, I did wonder if he was still out there, along with the rest of Newton, Massachusetts that I’d left behind many years ago.
The trash crunched and crackled beneath my feet. I kicked it around the place in search of something urgent. Surely I hadn’t used up the entire supply of plastic zip lock bags. Where were they all? The restaurant used them as doggy bags and kept a large supply.
I began to panic, crouched down and scattered the garbage about with my hands. “Fuck no!”
In the far corner of the room, the place I tended not to go, a large pile of sealed food bags with brown contents lay heaped against the wall. “They can’t be all gone already.” But I knew they had.
This was bad – Real bad.
Only two choices existed. Either I stayed here and crap myself, or I’d have to finally bite the bullet and venture out into the big wide world.
That I was a lowlife degenerate had long since become familiar to my mind. But living in my own feces was beyond even what I could live with.
It was time to leave.
If I didn’t clear the backlog soon, there’d be an unpleasant accident. I knew I should’ve stayed clear of the prunes.
Besides, all I needed to do was emerge, only as far as the kitchen, rummage through whatever was left up there, find some more plastic zip lock bags and return down here to the bosom of my refuge and safety. A simple plan. What could go wrong in a world where deranged zombie looking maniacs were taking bites out of your colleagues? What could have possibly changed during the intervening three months since that awful evening?
I approached the door, unlocked it and heard the click. That part at least was easy. Taking hold of the handle, I wondered if it was day or night. I pulled down on the lever, half expecting to be rushed by a horde of God knows what. With both hands pulling, the heavy door slowly opened and a vision of several dead Mexicans on the other side flashed through my mind.
But nobody lay there. No corpses littered the hallway. In fact the only sign of anybody having been there at all were the large pools of blood that gathered where the floor trenched due to shabby workmanship. The pools, thick and crusty now resembled rust rather than blood.
Maybe Carlos and everybody else had never died at all. Maybe they had escaped? But if that was the case then why had nobody alerted the relevant authorities as to my whereabouts, they all knew where I was. What I found hardest to comprehend was, that if they survived, then most likely they’d want to return to work at some point in which case they’d have needed to access the damn storeroom.
No - A more likely scenario is that during one of the many long nights, a cleanup team had arrived and disposed of the rotting corpses without disturbing me. Yes – That had to be it. Though leaving several large pools of blood for anybody to slip in was yet more shabby workmanship - Well, this was Hollywood.
A shooting pain emanating from my bowels brought my mind back to the task at hand. I ascended the stairs with caution and emerged in the kitchen. Not to my surprise, it appeared exactly how I last saw it – Trashed.
Though even in the ruins of the Hollywood Studio Bar & Grill kitchen, where I’d seen barbarism with my own eyes, even before those things attacked us, there were no corpses decomposing on the tiles.
I headed straight for the cupboards where the doggy bags were stored and dropped to my hands and knees. It always pissed me off the way they were stored right at the back. Why would the less essential items be stored in front of the more often used items? It made no sense, but hey, I didn’t manage the place. Maybe if I had been in charge I’d have ensured adequate security on the doors so we wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place.
I rummaged through the cupboard, spilling half empty boxes of crap to the floor. A cold breeze sailed through the kitchen, which I felt on my exposed butt crack. Shutting the doors to prevent looting o
bviously wasn’t a priority at the time. My fingers scraped across a box of doggy bags right behind the burger presser and strawberry slicer. Honestly – Whoever used such inane devices?
The box slid closer beneath my fingertips until I could grab it with my hand. “This should see me safe for another month.”
A grating sound emanated from behind, scaring me enough to bang my head on the inside of the cupboard. The grating sound, I realized was somebody hacking what had to be a vast quantity of catarrh from their throat.
Standing up and turning around – Five of them. Licking their lips. Orange drool dribbled down the chin of the largest. They stood – Expressionless. Menacing.
And all I had for self-defense was a box of shit bags.
Hey, I live in Hollywood, I’ve seen every zombie movie ever made. These were not the stereotypical zombies. They were green and decayed, yes. They smelled real bad too. But their movement was only slightly constricted due to them being, well – Dead. However, what was to come next took me completely by surprise.
“You. With us, come now.” Gargled the z with a tracheal tube sticking out his neck.
I no longer had use for food bags, or a toilet for that matter. An entire bowel full of pizza, nachos and ice cream unleashed itself in my pants. Oddly, my kidnappers didn’t seem to mind.
They dragged me outside by the scruff of the neck, the shirt collar almost constricting the flow of oxygen to my brain. They treaded in a cripplingly limited fashion, like dying and coming back to life had severely compromised the range of movement in their major joints. The steps they made were small, which only served to prolong this painful moment.
The outside was surprisingly calm, almost as if the earth hadn’t arrived in the post-apocalyptic era. Was this really central LA? Where was the traffic and constant blaring of car horns and alarms? Where were the bustling crowds and tourists? Where were the degenerates pushing shopping carts full of tin cans whilst begging for change or a teenth of meth?
Zombie Revolution Page 37